COVID-19: A crisis of female self-employed

Arbeitspapier

We investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic, and of the government-mandated measures to contain its spread, affected the self-employed relative to employed individuals in Germany and, secondly, to what extent the female self-employed were more strongly hit than their male counterparts. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data where respondents are asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that self-employed individuals were much more likely to suffer income losses than employees. Among the self-employed, women were 35% more likely to experience income losses than men, as women are disproportionately working in industries that are more severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We conclude that future policy measures intended to mitigate such shocks should account for this variation in economic hardship.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: DIW Discussion Papers ; No. 1903

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Entrepreneurship ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Labor Discrimination ; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
• Subject: self-employed ; COVID-19 ; income ; gender ; representative real-time survey data ; decomposition methods

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Graeber, Daniel ; Kritikos, Alexander ; Seebauer, Johannes
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
• (where): Berlin
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/225032
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET